


One Small Step

by Slenderlock (orphan_account)



Category: The Martian (2015), The Martian - All Media Types, The Martian - Andy Weir
Genre: AU where even more things go wrong, Excessive Swearing, Gen, Happy Ending, Hurt/Comfort, I was emotionally distraught by the game, M/M, Scientific Inaccuracies, So I wrote this to feel better
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-19
Updated: 2015-10-19
Packaged: 2018-04-27 02:59:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,001
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5031079
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Slenderlock
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s a toss-up between taking out the nose or the secondary engines, and faceless NASA intern #243 tells him to go for the latter. Which is good, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to space in a goddamn <i>convertible.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	One Small Step

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I was a shitty highschool science and math student and I’m not in college yet so this is probably not in any way scientifically accurate, hurray. (aka MMUs are supposed to last for like 6 hours and I have no idea if that’s enough time for anything in here, or if what Mark does is remotely physically possible. Given ~~my~~ Mark’s luck it probably isn’t) sO suspend your disbelief for a few minutes.
> 
> This is based on the app that The Martian promoted, which ruine d m y l i f e
> 
> (for the record, I totally would have saved Mark if that app wasn’t so fuCKING BUGGY)

o0O0o

It’s a toss-up between taking out the nose or the secondary engines, and faceless NASA intern #243 tells him to go for the latter. Which is good, because there’s no way in hell he’s going to space in a goddamn _convertible._ The NASA geeks know their science shit- or at least they tell him as much- so Mark only feels a little guilty as he breaks apart the engine and dumps it down onto the rusty Martian dirt, piece by piece.

He shoots off a message to faceless NASA intern #243 two hours before takeoff, as he double checks everything’s strapped in properly.

_How’re my odds?_

The response doesn’t come through until he’s strapped into the MAV seat and trying to ignore the sweat building on the back of his neck.

_Looking good!_

Something very hot twists in his gut.

He doesn’t have time to ponder it because the MAV is coming to life beneath him, engines churning and rumbling, and he double checks that he’s secured the strap around his body. He’s survived a year and a half alone on Mars, he’s not killing himself over a fucking seatbelt.

Lewis’s voice crackles to life on the comms, and he bites back a sob.

He’s been talking to faceless NASA intern #243 for months, sure, but this is the first voice- real voice- he’s heard since the storm. And endless reruns don’t count.

Lewis reaches zero and the MAV roars, rockets blasting the red rock below and sending him hurtling up through the atmosphere, up off Mars- fuck Mars, honestly- up to the stars. He can’t keep his eyes open, he can barely keep himself awake-

No, scratch that, he can’t do that at all, it turns out.

He blinks awake to something that is distinctly _not_ the _Hermes_ , and can hear a voice that sounds distinctly _not calm._

 _“Mark- Mark, can you hear us?”_ Lewis’s voice says, crackling through the comm systems.

“M’ awake,” he croaks, entire body exhausted from having withstood the shoot up here. “Where- are you?”

 _“You’re too heavy,”_ Lewis says sharply, _“You’re in low Mars orbit, you were supposed to have cleared, something must have gone wrong- you’ll clear Mars’s orbit, but not fast enough for us to catch you.”_

Well. Shit.

Mark squints, and he thinks he can make out a smudge of white against the black that looks bigger than the rest.

“How… far away?”

 _“Too far, we’re going to pass you.”_ Lewis, considering the situation, sounds remarkably calm about all of this. It makes sense, he reasons. After all, she _is_ the commander.

“Fuck,” Mark says.

 _“Yeah.”_ Lewis sighs into the comms. _“Watney, I’m sorry.”_

“Not your fault- no, shut up, it’s not.” Shit, now he’s got to make the stupid ending speech. He hates this part. “We got this far. I’m flooding my suit with CO2,” he adds, before she can say anything else. “I’ll just… fall asleep. Won’t feel a thing.”

Not completely flood, he doesn’t say. He’ll just keep it low for a little while, maybe fuzz up his senses. Might as well, if it’s gonna be his last moments, right? At least he’ll get to enjoy the view.

_“Watney-”_

“I don’t- there aren’t really words to thank you guys enough. I’m sorry I wasn’t enough.” Keep going, Watney- he tells himself- and you’re gonna end up being every other senior quote in a year or two.

Lewis starts to say something, but he shuts off the comms. He can’t listen to her anymore, he can’t think about what almost was. He doesn’t have much time left, he doesn’t want to waste it thinking about that.

What a shitty way to go.

But, he thinks, looking out the blown out windows at the planet below, what a _fucking amazing_ way to go.

o0O0o

“You’re shitting me- you’re _fucking shitting me.”_

“Beck-”

“No, you- we can’t just turn around, no-”

“Beck, we don’t have a choice.”

“We left him behind once, I’m not doing that again.”

“There’s nothing we can do.”

Damn Lewis. Damn her for being so god damn fucking professional about this, how the fuck-

“We did what we could. Watney did what he could,” Lewis barks, interrupting his mental stream of four letter words. Through the comm speakers that make her sound like she’s talking from the inside of a trash can, sure, but still. It’s enough to keep him from speaking.

But Chris isn’t listening, because this can’t be happening.

“It’s just bad luck, I’m sorry. We have to go home.”

Chris floats down the hallway and turns left, reaches up.

“I’m going to close the airlock doors. T-minus one minute.”

He aligns himself with the MMU, reaches back and disconnects the tether.

“Crew assemble in the flight deck in ten minutes.”

He stands on the edge of the airlock, fingers curled around the rim.

“Beck- _Beck, what are you-”_

He’s not turning his back on Mark. Not now.

 _“Beck, are you listening to me? Don’t you_ dare _turn this into a suicide mission-”_

If he turns his back now- if he had a chance to save Mark and he didn’t take it- he’ll never forgive himself. He pushes off from the edge of the airlock and doesn’t look back.

 

o0O0o

Fuck it. Mars is fucking beautiful.

Maybe it’s the carbon dioxide induced haze, but Mark’s almost in tears looking at it. Because come on, who else will ever get to see this view? He can see every crater, every slight change in hue, can follow the curve of the planet against the blackness of space.

That might be the Schiaparelli crater, but it might also be another crater he doesn’t want to know the name of. But if it is, that means the Hab is… _there._

He thinks of the freeze dried potatoes still camped out on the surface of Mars and almost laughs. Fuck potatoes. Fuck disco. Fuck Mars.

But also- _Fuck,_ Mars.

o0O0o

Chris squints, but the stars look as vacant and fucking blank as ever.

He knows which direction to head and how far to go, but he can see fuck-all. Mars is stupidly big and stupidly bright, and it’s getting harder and harder to see where he’s going. Mark’s supposed to be a stupid fucking long distance away, and even if he manages to reach him, he’s got no solid way of getting back.

He stows the thought away for now. Because Mark is out here, somewhere, and god _damnit_ Chris isn’t going anywhere until he sees him again.

A memory, unbidden, surfaces. A dust storm, Mark’s voice cutting off with a choke as something huge and metal collides with him, Lewis’s voice shouting his name-

_I’m flooding my suit with CO2._

“Damn it, Watney,” Chris mutters, propelling himself forward further. “You’re gonna be the death of me, I hope you know that.”

With no air resistance, it’s easy to work up a relatively quick speed with constant acceleration, even if it’s the tiniest blasts of Nitrogen from the back of an MMU. He doesn’t have anything to judge his speed on besides the slow crawl of the planet below him, so he focuses instead on the horizon. Every twenty minutes or so, he allows himself a careful glance behind, and sees the _Hermes_ shrinking smaller and smaller, blending into the stars further and further with every passing second.

The MMU’s only supposed to give him six hours. With his elevated breathing, he rounds it to five and a half, probably five. And it's already been an hour, and there’s still no damn trace of Mark.

“Come on, Mark,” he breathes, forcing the MMU down further, trying to see any trace of the botanist. “Come on.”

o0O0o

He’s selfish. He knows that.

Mark stares up at Mars from where he’s still strapped to the MAV seat, and makes a decision. If he’s going to die out here- which he is- then he’s not going to die strapped to a damn chair. Hell, maybe in a thousand years his body will go through a black hole. And how many people get to do _that?_

Lewis had been right, he’d cleared Mars’s orbit. But he's coming up on the second hour, now. They’re long gone. He undoes the strap keeping him attached to the seat and wrenches the door open, sending the MAV spinning, free of running engines to keep it from rotating how it likes in free space. And god, even though he’s still in the bulky as hell suit, it feels a hell of a lot more breathable out here than it does in there.

Besides, he gets a _way_ better view from here.

But, yeah. He’s selfish. Earth won’t get to hear his last words.

What if he’s already said his last words? What if he just doesn’t talk? No one can hear him, anyway, so would it even matter? What difference would it make if his last words were spoken to Lewis or to himself?

Will it matter if the last thing he hears from humanity is Lewis apologizing? Will that be the last thing he hears? Hell, are they still even close enough to reach him? If they are, they won’t know he’s listening, as long as he doesn’t say anything.

He flips the comms back on, swallowing back something very thick in his throat.

o0O0o

There it is!

The MAV is there, barely lit by the reflected light off Mars, floating aimlessly, turning lazily. It’s a wreck- the nose looks intact, but the windows are long gone and the rest of it looks singed to bits. Something must have happened during the launch, he thinks. Something other than the secondary engines not being quite enough. Maybe they would have been, if whatever this was hadn’t gone wrong.

But enough of that, this is the MAV, and Mark’s inside.

Chris almost can’t believe it- he wastes a puff of nitrogen to speed his approach to the MAV and slow himself down as he reaches it, tears the back door off, looks in-

It’s fucking empty.

“Mark you- fuck,” he curses, looking around the entire cavernous space. And sure enough, it’s completely empty. The only thing indicating that anyone had ever been here is the chair, the straps floating uselessly above the cushions, and the fact that it’s, you know, in space.

He understands. If he had hours left to live, he wouldn’t want to spend it strapped to a seat, either.

Abandoning the MAV, he shoves himself out the door- taking care not to damage the MMU as he exits- and scours the horizon- tries to see if there’s anything dark against the blast of red from Mars below.

“Come on, Mark.”

o0O0o

Hours later- or maybe just an hour, he’s got no idea- he remembers something. It’s been almost two years since he’s been able to listen to anything other than disco, but he still knows a few songs from Earth. And now, as he looks down at Mars, he remembers one.

He doesn’t know all the lyrics, but he hums along as best he can, as it plays through in his head. He can almost hear the strings pulling him along, the drums swishing and clapping.

[ _Thanks for the memory_ ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhLYRSbY4-E)

_Of rainy afternoons, swinging Harlem tunes_

_And motor trips, and burning lips, and burning toast and prunes_

_How lovely it was._

He doesn’t think about his parents. He doesn’t think about the white coats at NASA. He doesn’t think of Lewis or Johansson or Vogel or Martinez or Beck. He doesn’t think about the millions the world must have wasted on him. He doesn’t think about the word _almost._

_Many’s the time that we feasted_

_And many’s the time that we fasted_

_Oh well, it was swell while it lasted_

_We did have fun, and no harm done_

_So thanks for the memory_

_Come on, Mark._

Huh. He doesn’t remember that part.

_Mark?_

That sounds like Beck. Why would Beck be singing?

_Mark- shit- Mark, I thought you were-_

Useless. Useless, fucking useless. Hermes is miles away- kilometers away- by now, even if Beck was really here, it’d be useless- this must be his mind trying to give him some sort of pillow to cushion his death with, it must be, it must be.

_Calm down, just- shit, where the hell are you?_

Maybe this has to do with clearing orbit without fucking windows, maybe he’s just finally gone fucking insane after almost two _fucking years_ on Mars.

_You’re out of orbit?_

He looks down- up- at Mars. It’s slightly more than half the size of Earth, but it still looks fucking gigantic. He almost remembers seeing Earth, back when the _Hermes_ had first left for its journey. Christ, that was so long ago, he thinks. He misses Earth. He misses people. He misses the color blue.

_Mark- Mark, listen to me, calm down- can you see me?_

Shit, and that was such an introspective moment. Figures Beck would ruin it.

_Definitely still you, Mark- turn your goddamn CO2 back down and tell me you can see me, because there’s a shit ton of black out here and I can’t see a goddamn thing. Besides, you know. Fucking Mars._

Well, if Beck says so. He’s a doctor, after all. He knows what’s best. Nearly of their own accord, Mark’s fingers manage to do what he wants them to, and his suit finally stops yelling at him about how he’s going to die in such and such time if he doesn’t-

“Beck?”

_“Mark?”_

“I don’t understand,” he says, blinking himself back into focus. “I don’t- what’s happening?”

 _“Lewis is gonna have my ass filleted ,”_ Beck says, voice clear as ever through the comms. _“I hope you appreciate what I do for you.”_

“You- how?” Before Beck has the chance to respond, he understands. “The MMU- you fucking idiot, how the fuck did you even find me?”

_“NASA gave us all the information on where you were, even the shit that went wrong. But even if that failed, I’d just have to follow the sound of introspective puns.”_

“Where the fuck are you?”

_“Just passed the MAV.”_

“The MAV? I left that thing- fuck, I don’t know how long ago. Kind of hard to judge time like this.”

_“My suit still has lights in it, yours doesn’t. And I’m also strapped to this big ass fucking thing, shouldn’t be too hard to see me.”_

Putting aside for the moment the fact that Beck is _here,_ Mark takes a deep breath and turns, tearing his eyes off of Mars. It should be easy, he should be spending every second of air he has left looking at anything other than fucking Mars, but the inner nerd that had gotten him through NASA and up here in the first place almost won’t let him.

Right, right, Beck. Possible rescue plan. Fucking get it together, Watney.

Okay, let’s see. Stars. Stars, stars, Mars, more stars…

“Just… do something,” he says, feeling stupid for the first time in months. “Blink. Wave. I don’t fucking know- I can’t see a damn thing from here.”

_“Right, sure. Flashing now.”_

Aaaaaand- nope.

Still the same boring ass stars he’s been looking at for the last fucking hour and a half. Heart sinking, he turns back to Mars for a moment, just because he’s in fucking space and it’s _fucking Mars_ and-

And, well, shit. If that’s not movement, he doesn’t know what is.

“I see you, Beck!”

_“What’s your position?”_

“I’m at your eight o clock.”

_“Confirmed, heading over.”_

And miraculously, the figure turns. And it’s not a chunk of space debris, it’s a person. It’s an honest to god fucking human being, and Mark hasn’t seen one of those in a damn long time, so he tells himself it’s perfectly reasonably to be crying right now, shut up.

 _“I can’t waste too much nitrogen, if you want to get back to the ship,”_ Beck says, and Mark’s heart almost sinks. It’s a close thing. _“Think you can jump onto a moving train?”_

“I’ve done stupider things,” he says, squinting at where Beck’s silhouette is getting steadily larger and larger against the backdrop of the planet.

And then-

And then he can make out Beck’s arms and legs and head and he’s getting closer, and Mark can’t move, and he reaches out an arm and closes his eyes and-

Beck’s momentum slams into his own as an arm closes around his, yanking him backwards. He reaches his other hand up and grabs desperately for anything he can reach, because fuck all if he’s going to let this chance go.

And fuck, he’s crying a bit again.

“I got you,” Chris says, voice not quite as clear as it had been moments before. “I got you.”

o0O0o

Even without air resistance, they’ve nothing like enough speed to reach the _Hermes_ in any time considered ‘soon’. Chris has precious little nitrogen left in his tank, and with twice the weight, it takes twice as much to get them started, and twice as much force to propel them the same distance. Not for long, of course, but he still factors that in. Combined with the fact that he’s breathing _way_ too much and too heavily, and they have about two hours left. And that’s two hours of air.

It’s going to take two hours to get back to the _Hermes,_ at least. And that’s not even factoring in how far the _Hermes_ has moved from now, god, they could be anywhere.

“Lewis,” he tries again, hoping they’re in range.

 _“Beck?”_ comes the answer. _“Beck, status.”_

“Watney secure,” he answers, and Lewis sighs in relief. “Lewis, what’s the _Hermes’s_ position?”

_“I couldn’t change our course completely, but I slowed us down.”_

“Copy,” Chris says, nodding inside his helmet. “On our way back.”

_“Watney’s status?”_

“Alive and well,” Chris says, grinning down at Watney, who can’t see him through his helmet. Watney doesn’t say anything to that, but Chris doesn’t care. Watney’s arms are tight around his own, and that’s good enough for Chris.

_“And your fuel?”_

Chris checks.

“Twenty percent and falling.”

Lewis is silent for a minute or two, Chris doesn’t mind. She’s checking calculations, of course she is. In the meantime, he just keeps the thrusters on, propelling him and Watney forward through space, towards the faint smudge of the _Hermes_ that shines against the backdrop of stars.

They both know, then. They don’t have the acceleration to get back.

Even with the _Hermes_ slowed down as much as Lewis is willing to go, its engines are just too much more powerful than the MMU’s little Nitrogen farts. And with the two of them instead of one, the MMU just can’t compete.

Which, of course, is when Mark takes the opportunity to stab himself.

o0O0o

The airlock closes behind them, and there are hands grabbing at their suits and their helmets, and Mark can’t see a goddamn thing-

“Oh my _god,_ someone get him a bar of soap,” someone says, and Mark realizes he’s forgotten Martinez’s voice.

“Give him air,” Lewis says, and he can breathe. “Mark, are you okay?”

He blinks back the spots behind his eyes, and the white walls of the ship slide into focus. Lewis is looking at him worriedly, along with Johansson, Martinez, and Vogel.

“Are you kidding?” he says, meeting her gaze and managing a smile- a real smile- for the first time in months. “This is the best day of my _life.”_

o0O0o

This is the worst night of his life.

He wakes to the feeling of dust between his fingers and cold on his face, to the sound of nothing ricocheting between his eardrums, to the feeling of his heartbeat in his fingertips.

He brings a hand to the back of his neck and feels sweat, soaked clean through his shirt.

He throws off the blankets, makes towards the doorway, and collapses on the ground, legs shaking violently. Oh, great, he can’t breathe. No, wait, he _can_ breathe, he’s just breathing too _much._ How great would that be- dying in space because you were breathing too much. Fucking perfect.

Right, time to get back up.

He blinks back the lethargy drying in the corners of his eyes and tries to push himself up, but his arms prove to be as useless as his legs. He may have spent most of his time on Mars lifting NASA’s shit around, but malnutrition is malnutrition, and his broken rib is having none of this.

In the end, he can do nothing more than close his eyes and pretend he has a pillow. His body’s exhausted enough, it’s not unreasonable to sleep here. Besides, it’s a hell of a lot more comforting than Mars.

He tucks his head under a hand, eyes still closed, and-

“Mark?”

“Jesus- _shit,_ fuck, ow, ow, fuck, ow, _shit.”_

“Mark, shit, sorry-”

Someone helps him sit up and, yeah, that rib still really fucking hurts. There’s a hand on his shoulder keeping him upright, and a hand on his chest, gently pressing and assessing damage. It stops after a moment, then reaches down to the hem of his shirt and pulls.

It takes a little finagling, but Chris eventually gets his shirt off.

“Buy me a drink first,” Mark mumbles, sleep addled.

“Internal bleeding,” Chris mutters. “You’re still breathing, so your lung hasn’t collapsed. And your broken rib’s too high to have cut open your kidneys or your liver- must have nicked the Aorta.”

“Shut up,” Mark groans. “Speak English.”

“I’m _speaking English-_ if you don’t know what a lung or a kidney is, Watney, I swear to god-”

“Kidding.” Mark tries to smile, but it’s dark, so he doesn’t know if he succeeds. “S’ what I do.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Chris grimaces, glancing at Mark’s chest. “Your Aorta hasn’t ruptured, the bleeding’ll probably stop in a day or so. For now, you just need to rest.”

“Heard you the first hundred times.” Mark rolls his eyes. “And I _was_ resting.”

“You were awake when I found you.”

“I wouldn’t have been if you’d waited five minutes.”

“You would have.”

“Yeah? How do you know?”

“You’re shaking.”

Oh. Shit.

Mark’s hands close into fists and drop to his lap. He doesn’t meet Chris’s eyes.

“It’s okay, you know.” Chris’s hands close over his own. “Honestly, I’d be more surprised if this wasn’t happening.”

“If I say I’m fine, will you look at me with a sad dramatic gaze and say something like ‘if you’re sure’, and leave me to wallow in pity until I write a sad song about it?” Mark asks, dryly.

“You’ve been watching too much TV.”

“Blame Lewis.”

Chris helps him back up onto the bunk, and he reluctantly lies back down, wincing as his chest throbs painfully. The fall to the floor must have hurt it, he realizes. He wonders why he hadn’t felt the pain before.

“Do you want to talk about it?” Chris asks.

“I...”

He’s had nightmares before, of course. Before, as in, before coming back onto the _Hermes._ They weren’t very creative- the Hab depressurizing, his crops all getting the same disease and dying, his food supply mysteriously vanishing. Though there had been one about David Tennant walking straight through the Hab doors and having dinner with him. Which had been interesting. He’d been wearing the Tenth Doctor outfit, too, with the collar undone just so.

So, yeah, he’s had nightmares. Of course he has. There hadn’t been a point to writing them down into logs. He knew no one was really reading them, and they’d be nothing more than fodder for NASA’s shrinks. Besides, he was strong. A nightmare about the Hab depressurizing wasn’t going to set him back.

The Hab _actually_ depressurizing, well. That’s a different story.

But now? Now, there’s another human being sitting on the edge of his bed, with ears and eyes and a voice, and he doesn’t know what to do.

“If you don’t,” Chris adds, “that’s okay. I won’t press.”

“No,” Mark blurts, before he can stop himself. “I do. I just.” He sighs. “Haven’t.”

“What was it?” Chris asks, gently.

“Dumb.” Mark shrugs, even though he’s lying horizontally and it only serves to make the pillowcase shift over his ears. “Just. Woke up and thought I was somewhere else.”

“Ah.”

There’s a silence, then, and Mark hates it.

“I’m fine,” he says.

“You will be,” Chris agrees. “But for now, I think you should-”

“Why did you come back?”

Chris blinks.

“We- I mean, technically NASA wasn’t on board with the idea, and it was _technically_ mutiny, and none of us are ever going into space again after this, but-”

“That’s not what I mean.” Mark shakes his head. “I mean _you.”_

“Oh.”

Chris doesn’t meet his eyes. His hands close around the blankets and Mark wonders if, not for the first time, he’s gone too far.

“You don’t have to-”

“I was the one who said you were dead,” Chris says, quietly.

Mark doesn’t breathe.

“I was the one who read your dead biosensors, I was the one who told Lewis to come back.”

He wants to say _It wasn’t your fault,_ but he knows that’s not what Chris wants to hear.

“I was wrong- and because of that, I left you behind. We left you behind.” Chris shakes his head. “And then- and now- we were just going to leave you there, Lewis told us to go back to our stations- but I knew if I didn’t do _something,_ I knew if I didn’t when I could have, that I’d never forgive myself.”

“Chris.”

“And- and maybe I thought that, I dunno. If you’d made it this far, you deserved to not die completely alone.”

His ribs hurt like all fucking hell, but Mark manages to sit up, despite them. The blankets fall from his shoulders but he doesn’t notice, already reaching his arms out. Chris meets him halfway there and then his nose is tucked in Chris’s neck and he can smell soap and sweat and _God-_

“Thank you,” he says, not caring if Chris can even hear him, voice muffled by Chris’s shoulder. “Thank you.”

And as Chris’s arms tighten further around him- taking care not to jostle his ribs- he thinks he can almost hear Chris say something in return.

o0O0o

“I hope I’m not interrupting.”

“Jesus fuck, Johansson,” Beck swears, thankfully sitting up so he’s not yelling directly into Mark’s ears. “Don’t you know how to knock?”

“I did,” Beth says, smiling.

Mark yawns, rubbing at his eyes.

“Well?” Chris snaps. “You got us awake, the hell do you want?”

“Vogel broke out the butter cookies, we started breakfast an hour ago. Lewis wanted Watney to sleep, but we need you on deck, Beck.”

“Hold on,” Mark says, holding up a finger. “Go back to that part about breakfast.”

Beth snorts. “We were going to save the butter cookies for the next time we could see Earth, but Vogel and Martinez thought now was a better time.”

“I agree,” Mark says, sitting up a little straighter. Beside him, Chris stiffens.

“Oh, no, you’re not getting out of here.” He gets clumsily to his feet and yawns. “You- you’re staying in bed, you hear me?”

“Come on, Beck, it’s just a bruised rib-”

 _“Broken_ rib.”

“I’ve had worse.”

“I’m the doctor on this ship, and I say you’re staying here.”

“If you two could quit bickering for five seconds,” Beth cuts in, but she’s still smiling. “I brought you yours, Mark.”

“You didn’t,” Chris starts, as Beth hands over the tray of food neither of them had noticed her carrying, but Beth runs him over.

“Of course I didn’t give him a full ration, do you think I’m an idiot?”

“Hey, I’m the doctor, it’s my job to make sure-”

Beth swats his arm.

“Lewis wants to talk to you,” she says, raising an eyebrow.

With his mouth fully stuffed with three cookies already, Mark mutters a low _ooooooooh._

Beth snorts. “I won’t keep you.” She turns to leave, but stops. “Oh, Mark- Lewis also wanted to talk to you. Not with Chris,” she adds, quickly.

“Am I in trouble?” Mark jokes, opening the packet of granola now and peering inside.

“Very funny.” Beth smiles.

“All right, all right, you said your thing, now get outta here.” Chris waves her away and she rolls her eyes, shutting the door behind her.

Granola packet in hand, Mark lets out a low groan.

Instantly, Chris drops back to the bed, looking over him worriedly.

“This,” Mark mutters, “is so much better than fucking potatoes.”

o0O0o

A day from now, Lewis will come into his room and explain very calmly that they have working communications with Earth and would he like to talk to his parents?

Two days from now, he will see his mother and father for the first time in almost two years.

Two weeks from now, Vogel will tell him all about the bomb and the airlock exploding and he’ll laugh so hard he’ll cry, and then cry so hard he’ll laugh again.

Three weeks from now, he’ll wake up exactly where he expects to be.

Four months from now, he’ll wake up and go to sleep without thinking of Mars once.

Six months from now, he’ll look up at the sky and wonder which speck of light is Mars, and realize that he doesn’t want to know.

But now, he eats granola and laughs and Beck is beside him and he’ll never have to eat another potato for as long as he lives. Now, Vogel is laughing at a joke Martinez has just told him that he doesn’t quite understand, as Beth watches on and shakes her head. Now, Lewis is talking to the NASA ground control about their projected path home. Now, Lewis is still exhausted from relief.

And behind them, the red planet dwindles, until it is nothing other than a star amongst the masses.

o0O0o

**Author's Note:**

> note: yes I know in the app ~~when you choose the right one but the app wants to destroy your life~~ when you choose the wrong one he floods his suit with nitrogen, but for obvious reasons I didn’t want to do that :P also in case you didn't catch it, NASA intern #243 is yOU
> 
> note #2: im also not medically trained, all my info comes from halfhearted googling, so there might be another way to treat internal bleeding but I am blissfully unaware of it
> 
> note #3: I don’t have a beta for this and it’s 4 in the morning and I don’t want to nitpick it anymore so if you saw any typos feel free to point them out it would be greatly appreciated (or if you wanted to leave kudos or any other comments that would also be greatly appreciated)


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